Through Funk and Foolishness: Centering Queer Black Youth’s Resistance, Healing, and Futurity in Music Education

• In Event: Disrupting Binaries in Music Education

Abstract

Music education primarily upholds Eurocentric ideals, often limiting meaningful cultural engagement, especially for Black and Brown youth. Multicultural, culturally responsive, and critical pedagogies have been proposed to create inclusive environments, but can harm Black youth when Black ways of knowing and history are not engaged with intentionally. This study focused on the experiences of two Black queer high schoolers in Florida, highlighting how antiblack racism, sexism, and colonialism manifest in music classrooms. I used a tri-faceted lens of Black Critical Theory, anti-colonialism, and necropolitics, to examine power hierarchies and consider the possibility of a re/imagining of music education that centers Black joy and aesthetics. The findings emphasize the need for critical interventions in music teacher education and policy.

Author

• Lorenzo Sánchez-Gatt, Boston University